Cascade
by Kalmaro
Summary: This is the start of what will probably become something almost novel length. I've made this story a few years back but never got around to really posting it. Hope you enjoy my take on the origins of porygon.


The scene was serene to say the least. It was around noon and the Sun as hot as always. There wasn't a cloud in sight and the sky was as blue as it could get. The landscape looked average, for a desert that is, with the sand stretching out forever. There was little to see other than a few scattered cacti, sand, and a building, in the distance. Of course, one might think it odd that a building is sitting in the middle of the desert, but no one was there on the outside so no on asked questions.

Inside the building beeps and other noises could be heard coming from the machines in a dimly lit room, immediately identifying the area inside as a laboratory of sorts. Scientists busied about doing varying task and analyzing their newest creation, after spending years of research and an unnamed benefactor's money, the scientists there had achieved making a pokemon completely out of information. One woman stood apart from the rest of scientists, partly because she was glaring daggers at one of the other female workers. The frustrated woman wore a dark outfit with shades hiding most of her features from view. The only visible part of her body was her lower part of her face, but even that didn't give out much about her thanks to the suboptimal lighting the laboratory. Her light complexion almost made her seem among the walking dead, something that helped with her threatening air.

After a while, she finally broke the silence "What do you mean you might need more time?! You said earlier that the project had been completed!"

The woman she was directing all of her ire hardly seemed phased "Technically, Miss Jane; we're done. However, we still haven't installed emo-"

Jane interrupted her quickly, holding a hand out and giving an exasperated sigh "My boss has already told you exactly what he wanted, a Pokemon that was completely under his control. Emotions mean that it might do what it wants. The original was made without them, so I don't see what the problem could be, but if you don't stop trying to go off of the plans that you were given, then there will be consequences. You do realize that without my boss' funding this whole lab would be left to rot don't you?"

She stopped talking and took off her shades, revealing hard gray eyes and a face barely older than 30. Sweeping her gaze over all the people in the room, she added to her earlier threat loudly, "Perhaps I should let him know that you are no longer any use to him. We could easily find more people who could finish what you started. Such a pity since you are supposedly finished."

All oft he scientists rushed to her yelling various things like "please don't!" and "Won't happen again!" More than enough distraction for the female scientist that was dealing with Jane to escape without being seen.

She walked quickly from the dark room to the bright hallway, deciding that her last argument with her 'project leader' was the last straw. She had no clue who was funding everything, no one except Jane really understood much of where the money came and went, but she wasn't about to let her creation go to that woman and whoever she worked for. She still couldn't remember why she had gone along with the project anyway... apart from the nice paycheck of course. She rounded a corner at full speed, panic and determination keeping her pace rapid as she headed to her destination. She knew what she was doing would have severe consequences, but the knowledge of what could be done with her project(or at least she considered it hers; she was the one in charge under Jane) made that seem like a trivial issue.

Doors whizzed by, each looking like the last as she rounded more corners and entered a few more hallways in the maze that was the building she had worked in for a few years now. Her 'destination' turning out to beat the end of another hallway, two large doors designed to keep anyone unauthorized to enter from the outside. With all the money poured into making the lab run, high security doors were almost the first things to go up. Alarms would have been the least of anyone's worried had they tried to break in. Fortunately, she had special access due to being the head person on the project. Several keypunches and an ID scan later on the box to the right of the door brought her to the last security check, the auditory confirmation. A feminine voice stated its query moments after her card left the scanner.

"State your name" It asked calmly, contrasting with the frantic mood the scientist was in.

Looking behind her to make sure no one was coming her way she turned towards the door, "Leah Johnson".

There was faint whirring before the voice spoke again "State your purpose".

She froze. She actually hadn't thought that far in advance. Any access to the lab got logged in which meant that there was no way she could do this without being caught, not to mention she even had to make up a phony reason just to trick the door into opening. She took a breath and tried to ignore the thoughts in the back of her head, mostly doubts and her imagination showing her exactly what would happen when this came to the light. The fact that she had already started helped her keep pushing forward though.

She was putting together a mental list of people she could trust when the voice from the door interrupted her train of thought. "STATE YOUR PURPOSE!".

Without giving it anymore thought she blurted out, "Project has reached target deadline".

More whirring, "Name, Leah Johnson, head of Project D. Reason for coming, Project has reached target deadline. Time: 12:03 pm. temporary admission approved". The door finally opened and let her inside before closing As she was walking in the door shut behind stating unemotionally, " you have 30 minutes".

It wasn't a lot of time but what she needed done wouldn't need much. She fumbled around the wall for a couple of seconds until she found the light switch and flipped it. Light instantly flooded the room revealing it as another small lab filled with more computers. In the middle of the room, surrounded glass was the cumulative fruit of 6 years of hard work and research, a porygon.

This was the upgraded version, also known as porygon version 2.1. A porygon's original purpose was to help out with satellites, but a couple of years ago the same mysterious woman said that there were better things that could be done with it. So with her boss' funding and the help of Leah and her lab partners know-how, they developed the most high-tech digital life form to date. She knew more about this porygon than anyone else thanks to the extra studies she conducted on it when everyone else retired to their respective areas at the end of the day.

Around 5 months ago when everyone had turned in for the night, Leah went to the lab as usual. Computers were still recording every time she went in there but she could easily say that she was just making sure everything was in working order. She was standing near the glass tube that housed their pride and joy when she decided to look a couple of readouts on the computer.

"Well, you gained an ounce, must have been that upgrade we gave you today" she muttered, checking her watch, "1:11 am already? I should probably just go to bed, nothings really changed as of yet". She turned the computer monitor off and walked back over to the porygon putting her hand on the glass as she thought how far they had come. The fact that this came from a useless pile of data still amazed her. The fact that this pokemon could come from being a useless jumble of numbers on a computer to something so much more complex still astounded her even then. The possibilities of this project were limitless...and that was what worried her. At first her job didn't bother her; a paycheck's a paycheck right? Once the project really started to get under way and she began to understand exactly what project D would be capable of, she started to have doubts. She liked getting money as much as the next person but what if what she was doing could affect everybody? Porygon's original purpose was to help out with satellites. Before they started this they hadn't figured out how to get it off the ground. What could they want with this thing?

She looked at her watch and sighed, "1:42, it's getting late and I need sleep...". She stared at the porygon hoping that an answer would magically appear.

Suddenly, one of the porygon's eyes opened. Leah gasped, stepped backwards, and tripped on one of the cables coming from porygon's glass container. She got up slowly while keeping her eyes looked on the porygon. _"This makes no sense, it shouldn't be conscious yet" _she thought to herself before she finally mustered a small, "Um ...Hello?"

The porygon stared at her before it made a series of strange beeping noises. Leah, not blessed with the ability to speak with pokemon... or interpret beeping sounds, had no idea what it was saying. Thinking maybe there was a problem she rushed over to the computer to see what could have caused the porygon to activate prematurely. Before she could turn it on the monitor to the computer powered itself and a jumble of letters appeared on the screen. The porygon was interfering with the data that was displaying on the screen, eventually erasing everything visible on the dark monitor and forming a word.

"Hello."

Since then Leah and porygon, who she named Dee out of an extreme lack of inspiration, have talked about everything in general. Although Dee was genderless by nature, after discussing men and women for a while Dee stated that, through careful analyzing of facts, women really were the stronger sex and it would be the only thing that would suit her. Leah was constantly amazed by Dee's progress but deep down she knew it wasn't something she couldn't continue doing for long. Feeling sorry for Dee, one night she snuck away from her room and told Dee everything, including her "launch date". Dee, not yet possessing emotion, didn't see what the big deal was with being released to some random woman who couldn't possibly be up to any good. Leah froze upon hearing that at first until she realized that without emotions Dee was still just a complicated program. So in trying to get Dee to comprehend what exactly was going on, Leah convinced the other scientist to develop a way to install emotions into Dee, as more of a challenge for them than an act of defiance.

All of these events took place 5 months ago, and they still weren't any closer to their goal. The Jane showing up didn't help things either. So with no other options Leah set out to give Dee to one of her trusted friends and find a way to escape the lab or a least suspicion.

Dee "woke up" when the lights came on and floated silently as Leah rushed through the room and straight to the computer. "Dee it's time. I'm still not sure what they were planning to do with you but I have to put an end to it and free you now before it's too late."

Letters appeared on the computer screen "What are my orders?"

Leah searched through the jumble of items in her pocket before pulling out a small disk and placing it into one of the many trays on the computer she was now at, "I want you to find a way to get emotions yourself. Once you do that find the boy in this disk and stay with him. Guard him with your life and listen to everything he says unless it's not in his best interest. And don't tell him about your background, just that you're an advanced porygon and you were sent to him to learn. Try to convince him that this is all temporary until I come and pick you up, Understood?"

"Yes" Dee responded flatly.

"I've attached a letter to you explaining most of the stuff. Give this to him the first time you get the chance without attracting too much notice."

With that said she went to a larger computer, one with attachments that went through the ceiling of the room to a large antenna on top of the laboratory. "You should be able to use this computer to get out, I can put you in the general area where's he's at but you have to find him, good luck".

Leah stood up and turned the monitor towards Dee, who was already facing the computer and preparing for download. Suddenly remembering something Leah stopped her and pulled out a blue and black pokedex, "Wait! I almost forgot. Take this and give this to him too. It's a special pokedex. You know what it's for right?"

The word "Yes" appeared on the screen and tiny white ray of light ray of light that emanated for the Dee's 'beak' engulfed it. Moments later the pokedex was gone, stored inside her along with the letter and the disk carrying extra information given to her.

"Oh right, you could do that... All right, Good luck. I'm going to try to do something about deleting my visit here from the records."

"There's no need," Dee wrote on the computer screen "it was in my new owner's best interest that no one know that we met." With that she began glowing. Then a beam similar to the first one from her shot out into the monitor. After a few seconds the light vanished and Dee was gone, heading off to her destination and leaving Leah alone in the room. Leah almost couldn't believe how well everything had worked out so far and exited the room. There was no voice this time stating that she left, showing that Dee had not only whipped Leah's visit there, she has disable the systems entirely.

Things had settled down by the time she returned to the lab room. It was lunchtime and most of the people had left to go eat...All except Jane who was looking at some reports she had gotten from someone. She looks up when Leah neared, her shades still off while she stared Leah down for a moment.

"So Leah, have you decided to work with me then?"

"Yes," Leah sighed, feigning defeat "I still think that the porygon should have emotions, but I don't want to jeopardize anyone's paycheck so we'll go back to your boss' original plan. The porygon is 98% complete so we will be able to activate it and give it to you tomorrow."

Jane sneered, "Good girl, I'll be back tomorrow. Don't screw up for everyone."

"Yes ma'am"

Jane placed her shades back on and placed the reports she was reading down. Her demeanor was always cold and annoyed but there was an obvious glint of triumph in her eyes before the shades hid everything. "Nice to have you listening for a change. I stayed longer than planned so I'll be taking me leave. Have things ready first thing in the morning Leah." As she started to walk away she stopped and looked at one of the many computers near her. The room help many computers and other items designed for gathering information to compile to the porygon further in the lab. "Wasn't this the screen you were using to check the porygon's status? Why is it blank?"

Leah barely managed to keep a straight face while her heart stopped. Dee had been too though it seemed. "Oh, errrr...I'll get someone to check that..."

"See to it. Good day Leah"

"Good day Miss Jane"

Hello everyone, This is a story I wrote about 3~4 years ago but stopped due to life and other things coming up. I figured I'd post it here and, if it got enough interest, I would add more to it. Hope this was an interesting read for everyone. Much more to come if everyone likes it.


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